


Remember the Night

by morrezela



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Ninja, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen wakes up by a river with no memory of who he is. He goes to the office of a private investigator to search for some answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Remember the Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5764051) by [Amberdreams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberdreams/pseuds/Amberdreams). 



> Disclaimer: This isn’t real. The people mentioned belong to themselves. I am receiving no remuneration from this.
> 
> Warnings: Amnesia, scenes of PG-13 violence
> 
> A/N: This was written for the 2015/16 round of Reverse Big Bang. I was lucky to claim the art of amberdreams I wish I could have done more with such beautiful art. My writing brain either needs an energy bar or a good beating :)
> 
> Beta graciously provided by kaelysta All mistakes you find are my own.

 

Long fingers tapped against the edges of a pristine white business card. With every handling, the edges had started to bend and the color darken. Jensen cared not about the impact his actions had on the card. Although, some hidden paranoia kept him from letting ungloved fingers touch it. The thought of leaving his fingerprints behind gave him a sense of dread that he could not squash.

 

If Jensen was a normal person, he might be concerned by his body’s ingrained reactions. But no normal person walked around the world in a dark mask, carrying sharp knives and other weapons. At least, Jensen did not think they did.

 

He could not be certain of his opinions. There was, after all, a reason that he was sitting on top of a cold, windswept office building waiting for one Jared Padalecki, private detective to oust his last client of the evening out of his office. That reason was Jensen’s memory. Specifically, the lack of it was disturbing.

 

Jensen could remember waking up at the edge of a river bank. Sand had crunched between his teeth as he had spat blood from his mouth. His skin would have ached with the bruises covering it, but it had been too numb to register much. The state of his body had kept him from focusing on the state of his mind.

 

The lack of memory had not hit him until much later. The night had turned into early morning by the time that Jensen’s brain had quit screaming instinct at him. He was huddled in an empty house, an old woman’s crocheted blanket wrapped around his shoulders, when it occurred to him that he couldn’t remember why he had ended up where he had or why he was in such pain.

 

Determinedly, he had pushed the thought away, but a more unwelcome one had come in its place. Not only was his memory of recent events gone, but he could not recall anything specific about his life. His name was the only thing his memory could churn up from its depths. “Jensen,” seemed to linger on his lips.

 

Jensen could not even be sure if ‘Jensen’ was his first or last name. If he was forced to wager his life on it, he could not even be certain that it was his name. Perhaps ‘Jensen’ was just a name that he liked. Perhaps it was even the name of the person that had caused him to end up on the banks of a river.

 

For a couple of weeks, Jensen had wandered around the city. The outfit that he was in was conspicuous in anything but the night. Thankfully, finding out about the oddity of his attire had not been a traumatic experience. A couple of people had only stopped him so they could ask for directions to a cosplay event they had gotten lost trying to find.

 

They had, apparently, mistaken him for a fellow fan of dressing up strangely. Jensen had made up directions and disappeared into the night before the strangers could return to point out his error. He had, for a few minutes, held onto hope that he was indeed what the couple had mistaken him as. There was a chance that he was nothing but a man who enjoyed pretending to be somebody else.

 

Conceivably, he could have been dressed up as a ninja and gotten drunk before tumbling off an overpass into the water below it. It was not impossible to have gotten into a bar fight or to have been mugged. But the more that Jensen thought about it, the more he doubted his theories.

 

If he had been robbed, why would the thieves not have taken the sharp knives on his belt? If he had been in a bar brawl, why had he allowed others to beat on him without at least drawing one of those same knives? If he had only been dressing up as a favorite character, why were the weapons he had with him so real?

 

But then, if he wasn’t some cosplay enthusiast, what was he? The way that Jensen’s fingers idly flipped a knife when he was thinking did not indicate that he had anything less than an intimate familiarity with the weapon. But if what his reflexes were telling him was true, that only lead him back to the question of how he ended up in the river. Surely any man able to efficiently handle a lethal blade could use one to defend himself.

 

Jensen had been mulling over various theories of his fate when he had spied Jared Padalecki’s business card hanging off a corkboard in the twenty-four hour laundromat. The dryer had been chugging away, making squeaking sounds every other rotation of its drum. The whole place had been in need of repair. That had been why Jensen had chosen it. Nobody had seemed to want to hang around in it.

 

With nobody around, Jensen had been able to clean the one outfit that he could call his without anybody paying much attention to his state of undress. He would have stolen a change of clothes along with the money he had taken to power the machines, but what would he have done with it? Breaking into people’s houses and sleeping on the streets had not afforded him much comfort.

Shaking his head to clear it of the new memories he had made, Jensen shoved Padalecki’s business card back into the small pocket it had been riding around in over the past couple of days. Even though Jensen doubted that anybody advertising in a laundromat was at the top of his game, he knew that there were not many other options.

 

From the look of Padalecki’s small office in a run-down office building, he wasn’t making much money. His rates couldn’t be that high. Jensen already had a few hundred dollars that he had liberated from a few pockets of the more annoying citizens of the city. He found that if he hid his weapons from view and took his mask off, he could blend into a crowd well enough to get what he needed.

 

Finally, Padalecki finished walking his client out of the office. He locked the door behind the man and blew out what looked like a relieved breath. Jensen almost felt pity for the way Padalecki’s evening was about to go. But Jensen figured that on the whole, his life was in a worse state.

 

Jensen’s grappling hook sunk into the side of Padalecki’s office building with a soft clink. The thin, black wire held Jensen’s weight as he swung over, legs bending and taking the impact without Jensen even having to think about it. Getting in through the window was no effort at all. Padalecki had left it cracked open, likely to let out the oppressive heat that stifled the small and slight musty smelling room that Jensen rolled into.

 

Patiently, Jensen waited for Padalecki to return from his small waiting room to his office. He surveyed the left over coffee cups and half-eaten bags of gummies with disinterest. The papers strewn about were more interesting. Most of them seemed to be about cheating spouses, one about a stolen dog. All had a myriad of notes scribbled over them, as if Padalecki put effort into each one instead of picking and choosing his favorites.

 

The door to Padalecki’s office creaked as he came back in. He huffed as he slumped down into the listing, black leather chair behind his desk. He started tapping at the keys.

 

It took Jensen a few minutes to realize that he was going to have to move to attract Padalecki’s attention. It took a few more to actually convince his body to move or make noise.

 

“Ahhh!” Padalecki yelled once Jensen was able to make his throat clear itself.

 

“Mr. Padalecki?” Jensen asked politely as Jared brandished a flashlight at him.

 

“What do you want? Who sent you? Was it Welling? That bastard knows that the police already have all the information they need. Threatening me won’t help,” Padalecki spat.

 

Jensen frowned. “No, I’m here about a job.”

 

“I don’t need a bodyguard.”

 

“I need you to work a job for me,” Jensen clarified.

 

“A strange ninja-man that breaks into my office wants to hire me to work a case. Sounds legit,” Padalecki mocked.

 

Jensen slipped Jared’s card out of its hiding spot. “Your card says, ‘No case too small,’” Jensen read aloud.

 

“Yeah? And what is it that you need me to investigate?” Jared asked suspiciously. “Did you lose your favorite pair of nunchucks?”

 

“No,” Jensen shook his head, “I need you to find out who I am.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jared chucked back three ibuprofen before turning back around to look at the man who was sitting in the visitor’s chair in his office. Jensen was attractive. If Jared had met him on the street, he would have turned his head to watch the other man walk by. If he had met Jensen in a bar, he might have hit on him.

 

But there was nothing appealing about the way that Jensen sat. His body was tense and unnaturally still. His eyes seemed to track everything in the room, or at least everything that Jared did while in the room. It made Jared’s hindbrain screech in terror. He half expected to look up and see that a leopard had replaced Jensen while he wasn’t looking.

 

“So you woke up on the river bank with amnesia?” Jared asked because he had to do something other than listen to himself breathe.

 

“Yes,” Jensen replied politely.

 

“Did you file a police report? See a doctor?” Jared asked.

 

Jensen arched an eyebrow at him as if he was questioning Jared’s sanity.

 

“Right. Might be hard to explain the sword and throwing knives,” Jared said.

 

Jensen let out a slight breath, “I know it isn’t much to go on, but I need help. I can pay you.”

 

“It isn’t about the money,” Jared informed him. “I just don’t know where to look. If you went to the hospital, they’d be able to help you a lot more than I could.”

 

“What if I’m…” Jensen didn’t finish his sentence, instead lapsing into silence.

 

Jared could imagine how that phrase would end though. What if Jensen was a wanted man?

 

“What if you’re not a criminal?” Jared pushed. “Maybe you’re just an eccentric millionaire who likes to play with very dangerous swords?” Jared knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it came out of his mouth. He had thought that Jensen’s face was shuttered before, but that was nothing compared to how Jensen’s face closed off at his words.

 

“I apologize for wasting your time,” he said as he stood up to leave. His motions were sharp yet fluid as he walked towards the window.

 

“Jensen,” Jared said, “at least use the door. You don’t have to risk breaking your neck.”

 

“I’ll be fine,” Jensen replied. “I never fall.” Even without his memories, he was certain of that.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

After being turned down by Padalecki, Jensen did not know what else to do with his time. He thought about trying out another private investigator, but he knew they’d only take his money. There was not much to go on, no leads to research.

 

Jensen knew that he should see a medical professional, but the idea of going anywhere that he could be noticed made his skin crawl. Even if he could make himself go to them, the research he managed to do by sneaking into the public library indicated there wasn’t much that could be done. Aside from monitoring him for complications, odds were a doctor wasn’t going to help him.

 

As far as Jensen was concerned, it just wasn’t worth the risk.

 

What he didn’t understand was the compulsion he had to sit on the edge of the rooftop adjacent to Padalecki’s building. The need to watch over the other man was ridiculous. He had been brutally honest about his inability to help Jensen. There was no reason to be near him.

 

But Jensen didn’t have much else to do with his nights. He preferred to not stay in somebody’s house too long. The longer he stayed, the bigger the chance of being caught became. Rooftops, on the other hand, were rarely visited or watched. Sure, there were important buildings that people might care about, but nothing in the older, cheaper side of town.

 

So Jensen watched Padalecki work and evaluated the investigator’s security hundreds of times per day. It was like his mind was stuck in a loop.

 

When the three armed men broke into Jared’s office on a Tuesday evening, it was almost a relief. Jensen was swinging over the gap to Jared’s office before he even though about it. This time, he smashed through the window instead of easing it open.

 

The noise distracted Padalecki’s assailants. Two of them whirled on Jensen. They were bleeding and unconscious before they could aim for him. The third had continued after Padalecki who had upgraded from flashlight to fire extinguisher as his weapon of choice.

 

The third assailant was down on the floor before Padalecki could complete a single swing of his bulky, improvised weapon.

 

“Jensen?” Padalecki gasped as he lowered, but didn’t drop, the extinguisher.

 

“We need to get out of here,” Jensen said as he slid his sword back into the sheath on his back.

 

“What are you doing here? Who are these people?” Padalecki asked as he fumbled towards where Jensen was standing.

 

“I don’t know who they are,” Jensen replied as he lead Jared out of his office and out into the hallway. “Remembering stuff isn’t my strong suit.”

 

“Funny,” Padalecki muttered as they clattered down the stairs. Jensen didn’t dare take the elevator, and Padalecki didn’t complain as they raced down the steps.

 

The instant they were outside, Padalecki moved towards a blue SUV that was a few years old. Jensen’s hand shot out around his wrist. “I don’t think you want to get in there,” he advised. “Bombs aren’t just something that are placed in movies.”

 

 

Padalecki’s eyes widened as he shoved his keys back in his pocket. “I don’t want to think about why that’s something you seem to know.”

 

Jensen shrugged and tugged him off towards the nearby alleyway. Whoever sent the men after Padalecki obviously didn’t want to take chances. Jensen wasn’t about to give them a chance to finish their job by staying in well-lit areas.

 

“Where are we going?” Padalecki hissed as Jensen wove them through darkened streets and alleys, weaving a trail that would hopefully make a bloodhound dizzy.

 

“Somebody’s house,” Jensen replied in a low voice. Whispers attracted more attention than their reputation said they did.

 

“Whose?” Padalecki whispered back.

 

Jensen rolled his eyes. “I don’t know. And quit whispering. Just speak quietly.”

 

“That is the definition of a whisper,” Padalecki argued, though his voice lost the high pitched sound that was the telltale sign that one person should be listening to another’s conversation.

 

Jensen decided that replying would be unnecessary and continued dragging the other man through the town. After a couple of hours, Jensen was reasonably sure that there was nobody following them. He looped around the same block a few times before setline on a house that looked both empty and securable

 

“Come on,” Jensen said as he slunk into the overgrown bushes on one side of the house. Padalecki had a harder time climbing in through the window, but nobody was around to hear him crash into the living room.

 

“What is going on?” Padalecki asked as he stumbled after Jensen as they went towards where Jensen assumed the kitchen was.

 

“I was hoping you could tell me. Anybody you know of that would be mad enough at you to send three goons after you?” Jensen asked as he opened the refrigerator.

 

“I was assuming it had something to do with you,” Padalecki responded as he slammed the refrigerator door shut.

 

“Hey,” Jensen said as he pointed at the now closed refrigerator.

 

“That is somebody else’s food,” Padalecki said indignantly. “It’s bad enough that we’re breaking into their house, stealing their food is a low blow.”

 

“Are you okay with not eating until tomorrow? Or the next day? Because those might be your only other options,” Jensen informed him.

 

“I won’t be here tomorrow, because I’m going to call the police,” Padalecki said.

 

“On the phone in the house you just broke into?” Jensen challenged.

 

Padalecki’s broad shoulders slumped in defeat. “I’ll call them tomorrow,” he said. “I can go knock on some doors, somebody will let me use their phone. I’m not the one with blood on my clothes.”

 

Jensen didn’t bother looking down to confirm Padalecki’s assertions. Logic said that he wasn’t lying. Jensen had not been gentle with the thugs.

 

“What if the police are in on it?” Jensen asked.

 

“You realize that you sound like a paranoid, crazy person, right? Maybe if _you_ had gone to the police in the first place, I wouldn’t be in this mess with you right now,” Padalecki snarled.

 

“Why are you so certain that those men were there because of me?” Jensen asked.

 

“I don’t know, maybe because I’ve been in business for four years and have never had thugs come into my life until you showed up? I mean amnesia and deadly weapons sounds like a recipe for crazy hitmen to come out of nowhere, don’t you think?” Padalecki threw his arms up in the air.

 

“Okay,” Jensen said slowly, “besides me, is there anybody else? Any other case you’ve worked lately… There was one. The name you said the night I asked you for help.”

 

“Welling,” Padalecki’s voice sounded shaky. “I did some work for a former employee of his who thought Welling was sleeping with his wife. It wasn’t true, but I found something else. Welling threw out some paperwork that wasn’t exactly favorable. Some of the financial transactions for his company were off. Even beyond that, they were researching some ethically questionable things.”

 

“Like what?” Jensen asked.

 

“He ‘established’ a medical clinic as a front to research certain types of chemicals. Chemicals that could affect behavior, personality even memory,” Padalecki said. “I don’t know why I didn’t connect those dots before,” he mumbled as if he was speaking to himself instead of Jensen.

 

“Memory?” Jensen asked.

 

Padalecki’s eyes focused on his. “That would be a very large coincidence.”

 

“I prefer to call it an annoying bit of luck,” another voice interjected.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jared spun around to face the man whose voice he had rarely heard in person. “Welling,” he greeted.

 

“Jared,” he purred, smile white and boyish, “I was surprised to hear that you’re still alive, but now I see the reason why.” The large revolver in his hand reflected the moonlight streaming in through the windows. Its barrel was aimed directly at Jensen’s chest.

“Do I know you?” Jensen asked, voice gruff.

 

Welling laughed. “Well, you used to. Before I found out that you were nothing but a lousy spy, sent to be my very own Benedict Arnold.”

 

“You experimented on him,” Jared realized out loud.

 

“Obviously,” Welling said. “If you’re cooperative, I’ll skip the drugs this time. We’ll just go straight for the bullets. That way you don’t suffer, and I don’t have another disappointment on my hands. Tell me where your backup files are, Jared.”

 

“I gave everything to the police,” Jared told him.

 

“Oh, that’s what you want them and me to think, but I know you have backups,” Welling hissed as he advanced towards Jared.

 

Jared shook his head. “What difference does it make? How many copies of those papers have already been made? By the police and any other agency interested in them?”

 

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that,” Welling said. “Unlike you, I have friends in high places.”

 

“High enough to let you get by with murder?” Jared challenged.

 

“Where are my documents?!” Welling roared as he flicked the safety off his gun. Seconds later, the shot rang out and Welling went flying sideways.

 

Jensen straddled the other man, punching him with a ferocity that Jared hadn’t even seen in movies. Blow after blow landed until Welling was laying limp on the floor.

 

“I guess it’s a good thing that you decided to come back tonight,” Jared said as Jensen clambered to his feet.

 

“I don’t think it was coincidence,” Jensen said as he stood, staring down at Welling. “Welling said that I was a traitor. How much you want to bet that he asked me to kill you, and I said no?”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Four Months Later

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Jensen waited patiently in the lobby of Padalecki Investigations. It was obvious that the scandal of Welling attempting to assassinate him had done Padalecki’s business some good. Notoriety combined with heroism was the kind of thing that could make or sink a man. Jensen was happy that Padalecki turned out to be the former.

 

“Mr. Ackles? Mr. Padalecki will see you now,” the polite voice the new receptionist said.

 

Jensen nodded and walked briskly through the door she indicated.

 

“What can I do for you, Mr. Ackles?” Padalecki asked as he looked up from the mountain of paperwork that still littered his desk. “Jensen?” he gasped as his face dawned in recognition.

 

“I thought I’d stop by. I thought swinging in through the window might be a bit much, so I made an appointment,” Jensen explained.

 

“I didn’t think that I’d see you again. When all those agents came out of nowhere, I was certain you were taken off to some prison somewhere,” Padalecki said.

 

Jensen laughed. “Close. I was off in a secured medical facility having more blood drawn and tested than you ever want to think about.”

 

Padalecki’s brow creased in what Jensen thought might be concern. “How did that turn out?”

 

“Fairly well,” Jensen admitted. “I have a good chunk of my memories restored. Know my last name. Know why I was working for Welling. Know why I came to your office.”

 

“And am I allowed to know any of those besides your last name?” Padalecki asked.

 

“Well, I was working for Welling as a way to investigate his connections and interfere with his operations while we built a case against him. He hired me to kill you. When I wouldn’t, he used me as a memory experiment before his thugs dumped me in the river,” Jensen explained.

 

“And why did you come to me?” Padalecki asked.

 

“Because I had a bit of a crush. Before the whole memory problem thing, I was sort of enamored,” Jensen admitted. “It was just a bit jumbled up with the rest of my instincts.”

 

 

“And how about those memories now?” Padalecki prompted.

 

“Those I’d like to share with you over dinner sometime, Jared.” Jensen said with a wink.

 

Jared shook his head and smiled. “How about Friday at eight?”

 

“I’ll be there,” Jensen promised.

 


End file.
